Michael Barone recently penned an interesting piece that amplified a point that I made last week -- that the GOP seems peculiarly strong in some areas where Bush was weak in 2004, and peculiarly weak in some areas where Bush was strong.

Barone offers a tentative explanation that the political divisions that have defined America since roughly 1996 might be in motion. This might be true -- and I personally have thought that the "Red State/Blue State" dichotomy seems hewn into granite only because, in the chaos of the 24 hour news cycle, a month -- let alone eight years -- seems like an eternity. The problem is entirely on the side of the newsroom -- in America, it is very easy to have eight years of a phenomenon that does not amount to an indeliable element of American political existence. (We call that the Eisenhower Administration.) The news media and its pundits might not recognize that, but that's their problem.

I think that Barone's theory is interesting. I do not intend to dispute it here, for I think he might be on to something. My intention is to lay out a causal process that seems to exist in these districts that is independent of Barone's idea (of potential GOP trouble in rural America) or my idea discussed last week (of potential GOP trouble among Republican identifiers).

The set of races that are in conservative districts but are nevertheless on the table are all peculiar. We have IN 02, IN 08, IN 09, KY 04, NC 11, PA 10 and VA 02. Mr. Barone mentions CO 04, but Musgrave's vulnerability is really just due to the fact that she is a two-term representative** who only won with only 51% in 2004 and has drawn a (relatively) qualified and well funded challenger. She is in the lead in a bad year for her party -- which, for an incumbent like her, means that she is not really a peculiarity in need of explanation.

What of these 7 seats? Most of them seem to me to be explicable by the same causal process. On the one hand, partisanship is aiding the Republicans. On the other hand, the lack of a "personal vote" for the GOP incumbent (i.e. the type of vote that the House member enjoys because he/she is well-liked and widely regarded in the district) is aiding the Democrats. Ditto also is the national political environment, which I doubt is influencing vote choice directly in any appreciable manner -- but rather has brought forward top-tier challengers in 5 of these 7 races.

This dynamic seems to be playing out in two broad types of ways. So we'll take each type one at a time.

On the one hand -- in IN 09 and KY 04, former Democratic members of Congress are running to reacquire their seats. These two -- Baron Hill and Ken Lucas, respectively -- lost their seats in 2004. Hill lost outright to Mike Sodrel and Lucas chose to honor a term limits pledge and refrained from running. Both of the seats switched to the GOP because, I think it is fair to say, of the secular shift in rural areas from the "blue dog" Democrats to the Republicans. But they were two of the last seats to shift because of the quality of Democratic incumbents. The Democrats managed to win and/or hold these seats despite the secular trend in American politics. That says a lot about the two Democrats running -- they are of extremely high quality. Hill inherited the seat from Lee Hamilton -- and therefore won an open seat election in a conservative district. Lucas won the seat out from under the GOP when Jim Bunning ran for the Senate. The GOP only picked up the seat because he retired (temporarily, of course) and the Democrats nominated George Clooney's dad. So -- these are extremely high quality challengers.

Thus -- what we have in these two contests are two independent causal factors cutting sharply in two different directions. Sodrel and Davis both enjoy the advantage of district partisanship -- which is what yielded them the seats in the first place. However, they enjoy nothing of the "personal vote" that comes with incumbency because they are running against very strong challengers -- which is why the Democrats were able to keep the seats as long as they did. In the background here, of course, is the negative environment for the GOP -- which is undoubtedly what induced both Hill and Lucas to make another run for their old seats.

As for IN 08, NC 11, PA 10 -- all of these feature exceedingly weak incumbents who have run, in the past, relatively undisciplined campaigns and/or who have been generally undisciplined in their work to retain the steas. John Hostettler in IN 08 insists upon running the type of House campaign that went out of style when people started to buy a second television set. He raises no cash and eschews much of the professional advice upon which incumbents rely today. Charles Taylor in NC 11 has been haunted by ethics queries and is known to take controversial stands in Congress (like opposing a 9/11 memorial). Don Sherwood had an extramarital affair with a woman who eventually came to accuse him of abuse.

I think it no coincidence that the three weakest incumbents in the whole House are all in highly competitive races. There is a margin for error for incumbents in places like this that is greater than in swing or Democratic-leaning districts. You have some wiggle room to "be yourself" (for better or worse!). When your partisanship aligns with your district, there is relatively little pressure upon you. There is also the inclination to not run a full-time campaign and focus extensively upon reelection. This stands in sharp contrast to members like Bob Simmons, Jim Gerlach and Heather Wilson -- all of whom expect strong challengers and tight races, rain or shine. They are in full-time campaign mode and are highly disciplined members of Congress. Reelection stands at the forefront of their minds. Discipline is the name of the game.

But for many members, that is simply not the case. Reelection in a conservative district, after having served for a good long time, is less of a pressing concern for a Republican. I think that might explain the trouble of these 3. None of these men would do anything to intentionally diminish their chances of reelection -- my sense is that they just have not correctly assessed the risks that they could face in any given election, and have not ordered their campaign/governmental/personal existence as well as they should have. They never did the work to develop, or they put at risk, the personal vote that incumbents enjoy -- under the ostensible presumption that district partisanship would see them through.
In other words -- these 3 races, just as the prior 2, are explicable as being as close as they are because (a) the districts are very Republican, but (b) the Republican incumbents, for a variety of reasons, have failed to develop any kind of personal relationship with their constituents that is sufficiently large. The negative political environment forms the context that has given these members strong challenges.

That leaves IN 02, Chris Chocola, and VA 02, Thelma Drake. Both of them lack the kind of personal vote that the average incumbent enjoys, but they do not have the severe types of problems that characterize the members in these other districts. They should seem as safe as Musgrave seems, and right now they do not. Interestingly Moveon.org was in both districts early and seemed to have "softened" Chocola and Drake up. It seems that Drake is rebounding, and therefore we do not need to "explain" her (just as we do not need to explain Musgrave). However, Chocola seems to be faltering. I am not sure why. But, an explanation that captures the variation in 5 out of 6 races is not too bad.

My intuition is that this only offers a partial explanation. Weak incumbents who lack the personal vote should be in trouble - but 5 of these 7 seem to be in an obscene amount of trouble. Here is where Mr. Barone's theory about an emerging GOP problem in rural America might also be having an independent effect. It might also indicate a general softness for GOP candidates nationwide, which is what I hypothesized last week. My theory is still that the consensus estimate relies too heavily on these seats. Either the GOP will come home in sufficient numbers to bail out a few of these fellas, or Republicans in less conservative districts are in more trouble than we might apprehend.

**CORRECTION: The original version of this post incorrectly identified Congressman Musgrave as a freshman. She has been elected twice, in 2002 and 2004.